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Passing It On
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Subject: Passing It On From: Jerry Rasmussen Date: 09 Mar 03 - 09:06 AM Back in the 60's, I came to New York City with guitar in hand and a repertoire of songs I'd learned from Lonnie Donegan, Bob Gibson and The Kingston Trio records. I had only seen someone playing folk music once in my life, and that was Marshall Brinkman accompanying Leon Bibb on guitar. I was an unplowed field. Much of what I came to know about folk music, I owe to Dave Van Ronk, who not only taught me the mysteries of finger-picking guitar, but introduced me to the Anthology Of American Folk Music and country blues. When I was passable enough to foist me off on an unsuspecting public, Dave nudged me up on stage to sing in front of an audience for the first time. He opened up a whole new world for me. For each of us, there have been a handful of generous people in our lives who introduced us to folk music, taught us how to play, showed us a trick or two, and encouraged us to have the nerve to sing in front of other people. Dave was the first for me, but definitely not the only one. Now that the folk boom is a faint echo, and us old-timers are scattered all over the globe, it seems like it's even more important for each of us to do our share in passing on this wonderful music. In this country, except for a few true folk communites in places like Washington, D.C., Boston, Albany and some other large cities, there aren't many folk "communities," where young musicians can sit around with old-timers and learn the tradition, first hand. Us Amuricans are envious of our friends in Britain, where distances are smaller, and people can get together more easily. Mudcat has become a wonderful folk community that transcends geography, and it is one way to help pass on the tradition, and encourage the next generation coming up to add to it. As I've gotten older, I realize that songs and picking styles that seemed so well known to be taken for granted are now unfamiliar to a new generation. We don't have "hollers" (valleys) over here any more, where people can get together on a Saturday night and swap songs. "Passing it on" is different now, but no less important, or less rewarding. So, who opened the world of folk music to you, taught you how to pick a guitar or banjo, or bow a fiddle? Who introduced you to the world of recorded traditional music? Who did you hear perform who put the fire in your belly? Who encouraged you to get up on stage that first time, or booked you for your first concert? And how are you passing it on? Who are you helping? Share it with everyone else. Pass it on. Jerry |
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Subject: RE: Passing It On From: Deckman Date: 09 Mar 03 - 09:31 AM Hi Jerry ... this looks it could be a very interesting thread. CHEERS, Bob |
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Subject: RE: Passing It On From: Amos Date: 09 Mar 03 - 09:37 AM Jerry, you're just an overgrown mushmelon, is what!! Dang, but you are absolutely right. I was lucky enough to have as a best friend a banjo picker (at the tender age of 14!!) whose father was a musicologist of some renown, and whose library of records covered everything from digeridoos to opera. His brother taught me Travis picking and the chords to "That Old Fast Freight". I can't thank him enough. But what really filled my young head with music was the amazing energy of the Weavers, the Seegers, Leadbelly, and a group of LPs from American Heritage which contained field-recorded songs from the hollers and fields and chain gangs.They just opened my wee eyes to the breadth and depth of life in a way that even my beloved books couldn't do. As for passing it on, we do what we can. My daughter can play the blues, although she isheaded into symphonic music by choice. And last month at a 'Cat gather in the park, a six year old boy came up and asked me if we knew any train songs. So we took his equest very seriously, and set into playing "Rock Island Line" with the whole narrative in the front, and when we heated up the chorus the little tyke started dancing around and waving his hands with abandon. What a picture, I tell ya! I hope he never forgets it! A |
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Subject: RE: Passing It On From: Jerry Rasmussen Date: 09 Mar 03 - 09:50 AM Hi, Bob: Miken and I were just talking about you last night on Mudchat, and I commented that I hadn't seen you around in awhile... real good to see you here. Got a story to share? (An overgrown mushmellon?) Jerry |
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Subject: RE: Passing It On From: alanabit Date: 09 Mar 03 - 09:53 AM In 1973, when my father ran the Waterloo at Cholsey, near Reading, a group of musicians who were the remnants of "Stillwood" dropped in and asked if they could play. They handed round guitars, banjos and mandolines etc and sang folk songs, pop songs, Simon and Garfunkel and all the stuff you might expect from a keen, competent amatuer folk group. Their harmonies reverberated around the bar and everyone was drawn in. That was my first experience of how entertaining it could be. Thirty years on I'm still grateful. |
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Subject: RE: Passing It On From: velvet Date: 09 Mar 03 - 10:05 AM Hi My singing partner and I met in a local folk club in the late sixties.We have been singing together since then, mostly traditional and all unaccompanied harmony.Every song we have learned we have kept on file.We must have three to four hundred. We have in the past two years added a third voice,and have just recorded an album. Singing is the one of the most important things in my life as it is to my friend. We will travel far for a good get together. |
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Subject: RE: Passing It On From: Deckman Date: 09 Mar 03 - 10:31 AM Howdy back ... Yee Gawds and little fishes! People talking about me on Mudchat? It must have been a very boring night! My first exposure to Folk Music, and the guitar, happened when I was 12 or 13. A wonderful man named Bill Higley came into my life. He had just married a family friend and they had moved down to Seattle from Anchorage, Alaska. He had spent most of his life as a radio DJ, and his "handle" was "Willi Waw Willi." And, he was quite a singer and performer. For the next years, until I married and moved away at 23, he continued to give me voice lessons, elocution lessons, and performance tips. He certainly impacted my life in a very positive way. And, as you aptly ask, he gave me a sense of responsibility to, in turn, pass on this music. CHEERS, Bob |
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Subject: RE: Passing It On From: khandu Date: 09 Mar 03 - 11:28 AM My dad had an inate love for music which he passed to me. He and I would listen to the Grand Ole Opry on saturday nights when I was 4-5 years old. My oldest brother bought a lot of folk LPs during the late 50'- early sixties and I loved them. In the mid to late 60's, I rejected the"old" stuff, got into psychedelia and all its trappings, became my own brand of hippie/rebel and dreamed of being the next Hendrix (HA!!). Then, through a record club, I bought "The Great Folk Singers" and "The Great Bluesmen", quickly followed be "The Best of Mississippi John Hurt". That did it! Added to the fact of MJH's incredible style was the fact that my Dad had known John well (Dad often bought "shine" from John's brother, Ennis Hurt.). So, in MJH's music. I found a music that I loved and found something that opened a new connection between Dad and me. To me, it was the best of both worlds. Of all musicians, my Dad was my greatest influence, though he could barely play. "Passing it on"? My son, Jason, who is an inovative guitarist in his on right, has a huge respect for MJH, as well as Doc Watson and many other of the "oldsters". One of the greater joys that I have is playing with Jason and hearing him do some licks that I could never do, and seeing he same look on his face when his Dad pulls an unexpected, unorthodox lick or two on him. When I leave this place, some of my heart will continue to beat in Jason and in his music. Ken |
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Subject: RE: Passing It On From: Sooz Date: 09 Mar 03 - 11:47 AM Young people round this neck of the woods only seem to be interested in watching the current pop idols and if they sing themselves it's always karaoke style. So, our folk club have applied for a lottery grant to "improve access and participation of young people to live (folk) music". We hope to take singers and musicians into schools to work with the kids and to show them that there is an alternative. If we only get through to a handful, it will help to preserve our vast heritage. |
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Subject: RE: Passing It On From: Alba Date: 09 Mar 03 - 12:20 PM I was 13 just coming up to my 14th birthday and was asked to join a folk band in my local town. I turned up for rehearsal with the band leader John Kirkpatrick, a really great guitar picker/singer and was introduced to a new world of Music. Unfortunately I also required an ego after a few gigs and after deciding that I didn't need to practise with the rest of the band every time (cough!!) I was fired...nicely but firmly. The advice I got that night has stayed with me for 35 years......your singing is only as good as what you are perpared to put into it. Through John and my Uncle, Sonny (a bluegrass fanatic) I was shown so much. One of the best sessions I have had was with John 15 years later and some of the most precious Music recordings that I have are the 78's that were left to me by Sonny when he passed away. Between them both I learned so much and am eternally grateful to both men for passing on their Love of Music to a young girl who at the time didn't realise the impact it would have on her life:> I am lucky enough to be friends with my neighbors 13 year old son who plays pipes and he and I get together and play once a week. I love listening to him getting better and better at his chosen instrument and hearing him sing harmony with me. Through watching him and the enjoyment he get's from the Music is all I need to feel hopeful about the future of the craft. |
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Subject: RE: Passing It On From: Deckman Date: 09 Mar 03 - 12:39 PM Ah ... "passing it on!". That's been a mixed bag for me. I have three grown children. The oldest boy never caught the bug. Next came my daughter who, while she appreciates my music, also has never been much interested. But youngest son is something else again, speaking only musically. I fostered his early interest in guitar, but he took a spin I couldn't grasp. For some years, he became a very good and much sought after, bass player in some of the bigger rock bands around this area. He left that scene because he didn't like the drugs and "weirdos". Nowdays, I'm delighted to see him pick up one of my guitars, start of riff or two, and then show me something "new." We often find that was is "new" to him is really quite old to me. My major area of "passing it on" came through over ten years of teaching beginning guitar at both the recreational level and classes at the local college. And, I'm still occasionally surprised to run into grown people, that remember me fondly as "my guitar teacher when I was a teenager." Good thread! Bob |
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Subject: RE: Passing It On From: CarolC Date: 09 Mar 03 - 12:54 PM I guess my first exposure to "folk" music was in elementary school and summer camp when I was a kid in the 1960s. We learned songs like Barbara Allen and The Ash Grove. I got sidetracked by classical music when I was a teenager, in particular, renaissance and early baroque music. But that's why I learned how to play the recorder, which, many years later, I played in local jam sessions where we played all kinds of traditional folk music. The first recordings of "folk" music I owned myself were The Chieftans, The Boys of the Lough, and the Furey brothers back in the early 1970s. From the early to mid-70s, I encountered many different traditions of folk music at the American Folklife Festival in Washington DC, as well as from people I knew who did folk dancing and who dabbled in some different musical traditions. I remember sitting in a friend's living room in about 1976, listening to two women singing a beautiful Croatian folk song. And I remember, some time in the early '70s, giving one of my sisters a recording of a Russian men's choir singing Russian folk songs. I think I enjoyed that album more than she did. Skip forward to the late 70s and early 80s, and then I was listening to folks like The Norman Blake Trio, John Hartford, John McCutcheon (sp?), and a lot of traditional Appalachian music. Skip forward to the mid to late 1990s, and I was playing the recorder in a local jam session in Shepherdstown, West Virginia every week, where we played traditional British Isles music, traditional Appalachian music, and a smattering of traditional music from other countries, as well as a bit of US folkie-folk from the 1960s. That was where I found my inspiration. It was there that I met Paul Oorts, a native of Belgium, who brought his continental chromatic accordion to our jam session, and I immediately fell in love with the instrument, and especially the sound of continental folk music played on the accordion. Interestingly, at that jam session, I encountered "traditional" or "folk" songs or pieces that I had known previously as classical pieces from the renaissance period. So I guess it just goes to show that the "folk process" does indeed do what they say it does. I pass it on by trying to do it well, and playing it for people when I get the chance. I find that most people I encounter are pretty unfamiliar with this sound, and they usually take to it quite well when they first hear it. |
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Subject: RE: Passing It On From: Jerry Rasmussen Date: 09 Mar 03 - 08:58 PM For those Catters who have gone on to perform, the first person to offer you a booking holds a special place in your heart. Mine was Lena Spencer, who ran the Cafe Lena for so many years in Sarasota, N.Y. I was playing at a Hootenanny at the Gaslight Cafe in New York city in the early 60's and Lena had come down to find musicians to come up to the Cafe Lena. She came over to my table after I'd done my couple of songs, and asked me if I'd come up to do a concert. I was very excited, because I'd never done anything more than do a couple of songs at hootenannys. I gave her my name and address and phone number, and awaited her promised call. As it turned out, I moved out of New York City shortly after that, and never got the phone call. Twenty years later, I got her phone number and called her and said, "Back in 1964, you offered me a booking and I'm calling to take you up on it." She laughed and said, "Jerry, I was wondering what happened to you!" and offered a booking. It wasn't my first booking (Dallas Cline was the one who offered me that momentous evening, in Ridgefield, Connecticut.) But, Lena was the first person to offer one, and I sang at her place several times before she died. It was a very special place for many reasons... mostly because of Lena, who nurtured so many young folksingers during her life. Oh yes, I offered a first booking to a promising young folk trio many years ago. Their names are Gordon Bok, Ed Trickett and Annie Muir. Honest. Twenty five years later, they called me and said they wanted to do their 25th Anniversary concert at the Museum where I worked. A nice touch. Jerry |
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Subject: RE: Passing It On From: Deckman Date: 09 Mar 03 - 09:02 PM That's a very nice story Jerry. What ever happened to that trio? Did they ever catch On? Bob |
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Subject: RE: Passing It On From: Jerry Rasmussen Date: 09 Mar 03 - 09:40 PM :-) Jerry |
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Subject: RE: Passing It On From: Carly Date: 09 Mar 03 - 11:07 PM My earliest memory is of crawling across the floor to pluck the strings of my father's tenor banjo.(He still plays, not expertly but very enthusiastically.) He taught us all to go out and DO what we loved.At our house, you might hear Burle Ives or Pete Seeger recordings, classical music, showtunes, big bands or bagpipes.My mother taught me many of the fiber arts; from her I learned not just sewing, knitting and embroidery, but patience and the value of practice, as well as a sense of continuity through generations. Jean Ritchie, through her dulcimer book, opened a new world for me. I've written on her birthday thread about getting my first dulcimer, but it meant far more to me than just being able to find the right notes.Gary Stotsky also took me under his musical wing and helped me play. When I arrived at college, very much a closet singer, it was my new friend and soon-to-be roommate Merle Schlesinger (now Roesler) who insisted I sing. Together we shared many adventures; we found the Golden Ring Album and Folk-Legacy (Thank you and many hugs, Sandy and Caroline!) And we discovered the Folklore Society of Greater Washington, which truly changed my life, not only for the musical experiences, but for the many fascinating and talented folks I have been able to meet and hear over the years, and the great friendships I have enjoyed. I learned to love the stories and the people behind the songs, as well as the music itself. Bob Dalcimer and Michael Quitt, as Sweeny Todd Productions, hired Merle and me for our first formal concert.(We had sung at coffee houses and sings, and an FSGW Sampler Concert.) We sang in a beautful church in Baltimore to a large audience-I have seldom been so frightened and so excited. Sweeny Todd later gave birth to the Baltimore Folksong Society--A great bunch of folks!--who are carrying it on. Working with FSGW and other folk organizations has been part of the way I've chosen to carry it on. I'm very proud of the Washington Folk Festival for many years of presenting, for free, many local musicians, singers, dancers and craftspeople who can be found here year round, and many of whom offer lessons, classes, etc. All of the craftspeople at this festival demonstrate their craft, and I know of many people who have come away from this one festival to begin a new interest in something they might never have thought about. I believe fervently in pointing out to people at every opportunity, whether I'm singing or spinning and weaving, that these are skills anyone can learn, and it is much more fun to do than to watch. On a family level, our twelve-year-old son Samuel has been hanging out at festivals, concerts, and planning meetings since birth. We have been known to travel absurd distances to sing with people, and we take Samuel as a matter of course. He was taught from the start about being a considerate audience, and we always brought books or quiet games he could retreat to if he got bored. If necessary, we left. The results so far? I have never had anyone complain or seem upset at his presence.He came to us and asked, first for piano, and two years later, for Irish step dancing lessons, both of which he is still practicing, and after apparently reading through their entire concert, he fell in love with Harmonia, and in particular, the cimbalom. He is making do right now with a hammered dulcimer, but there may be an Eastern European orchestra in our future! My apologies for babbling on,but as you can see, Jerry, you have touched a nerve. And I have been fortunate to have had a lot of help in a lot of ways from a lot of people. |
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Subject: RE: Passing It On From: Night Owl Date: 10 Mar 03 - 12:48 AM No need to apologize Carly....a lot of us THOROUGHLY enjoy reading these stories. And thanks again Jerry-for starting another NEAT thread!! |
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Subject: RE: Passing It On From: Jerry Rasmussen Date: 10 Mar 03 - 09:49 AM Hi, Carly: You mentioned one of the people who has certainly been an inspiration to many of us, Jean Ritchie. I've never played dulcimer (although I made one, many years ago.) But, Jean helped to instill a great love of tradtion in me, and I had the great pleasure of booking her a couple of time. As much as anything, Jean gave me an appreciation for newly written songs, written in the tradition. I first heard Blue Diamond Mines in the 60's, about the time when I was first feeling the desire to write songs. That song, and others that Jean has written made me think that it was traditional to write new songs (an odd, but logical conclusion to come to.) We have the wealth of traditional music we have because people weren't burdened down with a scholarly approach to the music. I'm sure that new songs were just accepted naturally, and those that struck a responsive chord (sorry about that) were passed on. To me, Blue Diamond Mines is a classic example of a song that captures the daily concerns that we all face. If people don't relate to the closing of a mine, they can relate to the closing of a K-Mart. So often, people have a great influence on us without their ever realizing it. If you read this thread, Jean, thanks for your inspiration. And I use the word caefully. Jerry |
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Subject: RE: Passing It On From: Jerry Rasmussen Date: 10 Mar 03 - 11:05 AM Just a quick, humorous incident... This morning, I went down to our local Walmart to get some advice on drill bits. My friend Ernie, who works in the hardware and paint department is an endless source of information, so I knew he'd be able to help. I was trying to drill a hole through soft pine over the weekend, and even though the drill bits were brand new, I could hardly get the drill to cut through the wood. The bit heated up so much that it started to burn the wood, so I had to rock the drill bit back and forth to finally drill the hole. When I was talking to Ernie, there was a man standing behind us, looking at tools, and he overheard our conversation. He gave me the same advice that I knew from experience... that when a drill bit starts to burn the wood, it makes the wood harder than metal, and you have to rock the drill bit. I thanked him for his advice, and as I was leaving, I said jokingly to Ernie and the stranger... "Thanks for your advice... and you didn't even get paid for it." The stranger said to me, "I don't need to get paid for it, just pass the information on to someone else who needs help." Anmd I answered back, "That's right... that's what it's all about." Maybe I should have offered to teach him how to play banjo. :-) Jerry |
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Subject: RE: Passing It On From: Frankham Date: 10 Mar 03 - 09:01 PM I was presented in a first concert at San Diego State College in 1952 by a wonderful folklorist, performer, mentor, Rennaissance man who has contributed so much to folk music, Sam Hinton. Not many know about him because he as Thoreau traveled extensively in Concord, did so most of his life in San Diego. Anybody in that town who knows anything about folk music knows about the legendary Sam. I've always been in awe of his accomplishments as curator at Scripps Institute of Oceanography in La Jolla, head of the California University education division for a while, a highly entertaining performer who can put on quite a show being able to (and I've never heard anyone else be able to do this) whistle in two part harmony. He can sing and whistle at the same time a countrupuntal tune. He can imitate any animal sound you like, play a great harmonica and sometimes without using his hands, He can connect the dots in folklore by doing three or four variants of a song showing it's evolution historically such as Captain Kidd/Wondrous Love or Rocking the Cradle/Whoopie Ti Yi Yo. He is a fount of information on songs and their background. Sam is over eighty years young now and is a legend in my book. He got his start on the old Major Bowes Amateur Hour in radio and decided that the show business life was not as stable as being a PHD biologist which allowed him to do the kind of concerts he wanted to do instead of being forced into a musical market place. He's on the internet if you want to check out his website. He's truly worth knowing about. Frank Hamilton |
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Subject: RE: Passing It On From: Deckman Date: 10 Mar 03 - 09:51 PM Frank ... thank you for your wonderful posting! I've been very lucky to have met Sam several times over the years. I first met him at a hoot in Seattle, around the late 50's. I then caught him at several concerts he did in the Santa Cruz area in the early 60's. And you are so right. What he can do with a tiny 4" harmonica is astounding. And of course, who can ever forget that wonderful anthem to the micorscopic organism (I'm a carpenter, not a marine biologist). What a mentor ... you were blessed, as we all have been by some wonderful and kind souls. I'm so glad to get an update on Sam. Than you again. CHEERS, Bob(deckman)Nelson |
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Subject: RE: Passing It On From: Deckman Date: 10 Mar 03 - 10:14 PM ... and I almost forgot that most famous song of all that Sam wrote: "Harry Herman!" "Harry Herman, he was short and fat, but the best clam digger outta' Popum flat ... " Bob |
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Subject: RE: Passing It On From: Art Thieme Date: 10 Mar 03 - 10:50 PM Aye, Jerry, I'm STILL trying to do that very thing with what I managed to find out there. Ask Big Mick or Katlaughing or many others here. Lately Stewie in Darwin, OZ and I have been swapping our own and othe r things. I spent today putting together tapes for him of WALTER VINSON of the Muississippi Sheiks in the 1930s. I made those on November 11, 1962 in an apartment on the south side of Chicago. Along with Walter were Walter Pierson and piano whiz, Lazy Bill Lucas. I'm also including a dub of Utah Phillips' radio show where he used tapes I made in '61 of hobo fiddler and IWW singer, Paul Durst who worked for Buffalo Bill and took a tramp steamer with Joe Hill to the Hawaiian Islands.----------------------- Right now, Dennis Cook is working on digitizing a slew of my stuff that was never issued on LPs or cassettes or CD. Sooo, I'm still trying to pass my own stuff on even though I can't do it actually. Passing the songs on is what we've always done. You and I, swapping all the recordings we've traded over the years, have kept a whole batch of great sounds alive that wouldn't've been lost (to me, anyhow) otherwise. I absolutely KNOW that I'd not have the great collection of black and white gospel songs I've got if not for you and the guys. Yeah, you four (or five) must just be some kind of MESSENGERS or something, right??? These days with cash being sparse, I can't pay the price of CDs. The way to do it is to swap what we've found for what others have found. That's what we've always done I guess. What goes around... Love to you and Ruth, Art |
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Subject: RE: Passing It On From: Art Thieme Date: 10 Mar 03 - 11:21 PM Frank, Funny you should mention Sam Hinton.-----Right now, for the 10th or 12th time, I'm half way into a great book Sam wrote called SEASHORE LIFE OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA (University Of California Press--1969). When I lived on the coast of Oregon I got into the truly alien lifeform world that is revealed every time the tide goes out-----especially tramping around on a minus 2-foot tide below Cape Foulweather. There is no need for us to go to outer space to find aliens. They're right here with us. And it's Sam's good book (along with Ed Ricketts book, Between Pacific Tides, that allows me to travel back to the tide pools of the West coast whenever I wish. That little book along with the letters Sam and I have traded over the years are treasured posessions. Be sure to check out the great CD available now of his Library Of Congress Archive Of American Folksong depositions. Wonderful music. Art Thieme |
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Subject: RE: Passing It On From: Walking Eagle Date: 10 Mar 03 - 11:32 PM PaPaw and Mommie (grandparents). They played the fiddle and the banjo. Girl Scouts helped as well. "Tell Me Why." And the Rounds Songs that we sang every night at Girl Scout Camp. Made the whole mountain sing! My Dad sang me to sleep every night with "Goodnight Irene." I also remember seeing Leonard Bernstein's Music for Young People on TV. That had a HUGE influence on me. The same TV also brought me "The Flatt and Scruggs Show." Also, the songs of Nature such as the song of the Wood Thrush and the Meadowlark. I still love to listen to Dawnsong in the woods. There was a local radio program that I listened to that disected classical music and made it come alive. I used to put my transistor radio under my pillow every Sunday night and listen to that program. |
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Subject: RE: Passing It On From: Amos Date: 10 Mar 03 - 11:59 PM ..and then there was the Coffee Drinking Night Owl out of WWVA in Wheeling. One DJ I will never forget. A |
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Subject: RE: Passing It On From: michaelr Date: 11 Mar 03 - 02:26 AM First folk song I remember hearing was "My Darling Clementine". It came on the radio and made me cry when I was but fairy high -- five years old or so. I, too, learned to play the recorder, but my mother's piano lessons didn't take. My next musical memory (other than "Peter and the Wolf") is The Beatles, and shortly after I became aware of the possibility that one could play the guitar... like them... yeah right! That didn't happen, but when I was sixteen and knew all three guitar chords, an older friend turned me on to -- DONOVAN! Immediately, I could play a good twenty songs! This was a breakthrough, an incredible revelation... until I ran into a song that needed a fourth chord. Major bummer. But I persevered. At 18 I happened to wander into a Furey Brothers concert and was exposed to the dulcet tones of the uillean pipes, and the sweet strains of Dublin song. They made an impression, but it wasn't until ten years later that I met a Dublin man who sang and played guitar and had internalized 85% of christy Moore's repertoire. Sean Oglesby, bless his bollocks, introduced me to Irish music and got me hooked in a serious way. Ever since, I have made a study of all things "Celtic" (I know, I know), and while I like old-time, bluegrass, country and rock'n'roll, and enjoy playing a bi-weekly electric 70s funk jam, Irish and Scots traditional music has been my great love for the majority of my performing careen, er, career. Which brings me to "passing it on" -- I pass it on every time I sing an old ballad and tell a bit about it; every time I recommend a folk album to someone; and every time I record a trad song or tune and give it my own imprint. Great stories here; great thread. Cheers, Michael |
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Subject: RE: Passing It On From: Gurney Date: 11 Mar 03 - 02:38 AM Another great thread. I was dragged away from a jazz club.."come on, you'll love it" ..into a folk club in Coventry, in the middle 60's. I was expectin 4 strong winds to hammer in the morning, I got Barry Skinner singing 'Fanny Blair.' NEVER before or since has a song made an impact on me like that. Rod Felton also sang in his unique style. I first sang because Cyril Tawney TOLD me I was going to, "next week," at the Barbican Grecian Club, in Plymouth. I've known 'Fanny Blair' for 35 years and never sung it. Might just affect some other poor sod.... |
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Subject: RE: Passing It On From: gnu Date: 11 Mar 03 - 06:07 AM My father had a record player and a number of comtemporary LP's, Miller, Como, Lanza, Sinatra, and even Elvis. He only had the Elvis LP because Elvis gave it to him after buying a car from Dad in Germany while they were stationed there with the military. I played Elvis so many times that the LP went "missing". Then, Dad came home one day with "Hearty and Hellish" by Tommy Makem and The Clancy Brothers. I use to put it by my bed at night so it would not get lost. Thousands of dollars worth of LP's, tapes, guitars, books and Bodhrans later, I have two young cousins who can sing and play Irish Trad like a house on fire. When they take the stage and the audience roars, it brings tears to my eyes. Since the new-found popularity and interest in Celtic Trad began a decade or so ago, I've taught dozens of kids and adults basic Bodhran. I never try to teach anything advanced because I believe that stuff comes from within and can't, or maybe moreso, shouldn't, be taught. I've never charged anyone. My only "fee" is that they truly want to put in the work and that they teach others in turn. |
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Subject: RE: Passing It On From: GUEST Date: 11 Mar 03 - 07:12 AM I'm passing it back! Since I've been singing around and about, and loving it so much, I've been able to encourage my dad (age 70)to come out too. He sings traditional songs and also sings his own - which are usually scurrilous and always well received. Its never too late to start...... |
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Subject: RE: Passing It On From: C-flat Date: 11 Mar 03 - 01:12 PM In another of your threads Jerry, we were discussing the greatest thing we've done and the point was made how sometimes we are unaware of how our actions affect others. It was a friend of my elder brother who "passed it on" to me when he turned up at our house with a guitar and sat and played in our kitchen. I was ten years old at the time and in the thirty five years since then I can't think of another single event that captivated me so completely as that moment did. I knew that that's what I wanted to do and drove my parents mad until they got me a battered old guitar with a cheese-grater action and locked myself away to learn how to make a passable sound on it. I'm quite sure my brothers friend had no idea how defining that moment was for me but I'm acutely aware, when playing for others, that I could be "passing it on" too. I'd like to think so! Another great thread, thanks Jerry! C-flat. |
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Subject: RE: Passing It On From: Jerry Rasmussen Date: 11 Mar 03 - 02:46 PM Hi, C: You might get a kick out of this story.. Many years ago, I went to visit a friend of mine wh lived in a small town in Wisconsin. He had a passle of kids, and the three little boys were mesmerized when I played my guitar and sang. The following morning, we were downstairs and the little boys came down stairs, strumming their pillows, like they were guitars. The next time I saw any of the kids was on stage at Radio City Music Hall in New York City. One of the sons was playing guitar ins the Otmar Leibert trio (which has won a couple of Grammy's for "new Age" music. They were opening for Julio Iglesias. Don't ask me how I ended up at a Julio Eglesias concert.. Jerry |
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Subject: RE: Passing It On From: C-flat Date: 11 Mar 03 - 03:34 PM Actually Jerry, a guy did approach me after a gig recently and told me that I was the reason he had taken up the guitar! I was naturally pleased and flattered until he added, "I thought that if THAT guy can play with HIS short, fat fingers, then anyone can!" That last bit took the edge of the compliment somewhat! |
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Subject: RE: Passing It On From: Jerry Rasmussen Date: 11 Mar 03 - 04:14 PM LOL, C: J |
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Subject: RE: Passing It On From: wilco Date: 11 Mar 03 - 05:42 PM Jerry: "Folk music" is all over the place, here in SE Tennessee. What is interesting to me is that the "folk wave of the sixties" is not recognized as some great period of folk music down here, since we never stopped singing it. Tonight, one of the groups I play with has many members who grew-up in homes that were full of folk music. Many of these folks were in very poor, rural families, whose only entertainment was music. Four people come to mind. The first is a retired nurse who grew-up on a ranch in Texas. Another is a 54 year-old retired attorney, whose parents were share-croppers in South georgia, and he grew-up in a converted chicken house. Another is a sixty year-old woman, also a share-cropper's child, who grew-up in the cotton firelds near memphis, TN. Another, a man about 75, grew-up in the Smoky Mountains nearn Knoxville, and talks about coming-out of the fields everyday , back to the house, tpo listen to KNOX AM during lunch. It would be live, with Jim and Jessie, Mollie O'Day, etc. They are FUN to play with. They know thousands of "folk songs." |
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Subject: RE: Passing It On From: Bill D Date: 11 Mar 03 - 11:34 PM In Wichita, Kansas in the early 1960s, there grew a small folkie community, the 'star' of which was Larry Kiefer, who sang opera at the university, but somehow knew MANY Child ballads and everything in "Sing Out"....he single-handedly kept me from getting lost in The Kingston Trio for a year or two, and then Roland Appleton with his frailed banjo showed up, and soon we had Hootenannies going and discovered there were LOTS of folks who played and sang. I recently found Roland via the internet, still playing in Pennsylvania, but I heard Larry died years ago in California......so many names since those days...wow... |
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Subject: RE: Passing It On From: Jeanie Date: 12 Mar 03 - 05:38 PM So interesting to hear of other people's experiences - thank you ! My introduction to traditional songs was through my two grandpas (both born in the late 1880's). The Scots one from Callender singing "Heh, Johnnie Cope are ye waukin yet?" (he also did a sword dance over my grandma's crossed walking sticks) and the Devon one singing "Crack, crack goes the whip". Auntie Elsie used to sing "Old Roger is dead and laid in his grave" complete with highly dramatic actions, and I always loved my mum singing "Old Mr. Fox went out one night." This was in the 1950s, and to me they were "funny songs that older people like to sing" - and they sounded so different and special than any other kind of music I was hearing. After that, the great memory for me is walking into Brentwood Folk Club in 1968, desperately pretending to be old enough to be allowed into a pub, and hearing Nic Jones and the sheer magic of story telling by unaccompanied ballad singing. Then, a couple of weeks later hearing the uniq Dave and Toni Arthur. For me (who had been told by a teacher at the age of 9 that my voice was "too low") this opened a locked door to me. |
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Subject: RE: Passing It On From: Jeanie Date: 12 Mar 03 - 05:50 PM ... my post, continued.... (sorry - I must have pressed the wrong button somewhere).... Hearing these people and their respect for the history of the songs they were singing led me to choose Broadside Ballads as my "Interest" subject in the Duke of Edinburgh's Award at School. I remember the music teacher saying to me: "Why don't you sing like this in music lessons?" Well.... we were never given the opportunity... I can't remember exactly when, but I do remember the first time singing a floor spot at Brentwood, and the kindness of the people who ran the club (Nic Jones and Geoff and Penny Harris) to us unruly teenagers. (They were oldies all of 20 at the time). Now, as far as my "passing it on": It is through my very poor whistle playing ! My teenage daughter (who is very good at classical flute) despairs of my renditions of Irish jigs. "Come on, let me show you" she says - "Oooh, that's a nice tune". - jeanie |
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Subject: RE: Passing It On From: GUEST,maire-aine, not at home Date: 14 Mar 03 - 01:53 PM What an interesting thread. I wanted to take some time with this one. The radio was always on in our house when I was growing up, but it was mostly background music. But I remember hearing the Renfro Valley Gathering on Sunday mornings before we went to church. I don't think I cared for it much at the time; to my 10-year-old sensibilities, the singers sounded "nasal". But I think it got into my system somehow, anyway. My dad used to sing stuff like "The Preacher and the Bear", but nobody played an instrument. I loved to listen to Hoagy Carmichael and Johnny Mercer songs. Some time around fifth grade, maybe, I learned "The Minstrel Boy" in school. I took piano lessons around 7th & 8th grade, but I didn't enjoy it; it was so "fussy" and "formal" and no fun whatsoever. Once I started high school that was the end of the piano. In college, I tried my hand at guitar, but that only lasted a few months. Back in the early 70s, a friend of my mother's used to go back to Ireland every summer to visit, and she'd bring me back Chieftains albums. Some time in the mid-70s, I was involved in a community organization. Our president got the board together (ostensively for a board meeting) and took us all to hear Holly Near and Ronnie Gilbert. That was a life-changing event. It was the first time I heard "Lifeline" and Charlie King's "Two Good Arms". Somehow I knew that, someday, I'd sing that song. In 1989 I moved into a new neighborhood and the parks & recreation dept. newsletter listed a class called "Introduction to Gaelic", so I signed up for it; stayed with it for several years. Didn't learn much of the language, but it introduced me to ceili dancing and playing the bodhran. It didn't take long to notice that the musicians seemed to be having as much fun as the dancers, but not working nearly as hard. That was when I decided to learn to play guitar; I had just passed my 40th birthday. My first guitar teacher was Vincent Sadovsky, but you can't blame him for my playing. He tried his best. I'd have been better if I'd practiced harder, but life and a day-time job got in the way. But even though I wasn't very good, one of my friends- Icie Frady- invited me to play with her band once in a while. It made all the difference in the world. It forced me to make more of an effort to improve. One night, after a particularly long evening when everybody else was "sung out", Icie said "It's your turn. Don't just sit there, sing something." So I sang one of the songs I'd learned in the Irish language class, and the rest is history. Through that same group of folks, I was fortunate enough to meet the late Al Purcell, one of North America's best uillean (sp?) pipers, who was vary gracious and encouraging to a neophyte guitar player, especially since guitars are "less than welcome" in some Irish music circles. And at some point along the way, I was introduced to the music of Si Kahn, who has become one of my heroes. I had a chance to meet him a year or so ago, and I was just thrilled, plus he was SO NICE. Maryanne |
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Subject: RE: Passing It On From: Deckman Date: 16 Mar 03 - 07:38 PM |
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Subject: RE: Passing It On From: GUEST,Steve benbows protege Date: 17 Mar 03 - 02:58 AM My father introduced me to folk music as he was a semi - pro back in the sixties. My brother in law lived in Hanwell and invited me out to a gig. During the interval I was forced to sing on stage and after i had Steve wondered over to me and asked if i would like to be taught by him. Steve has collected many things off of some wonderful musicians and played with many top flight artists over the years. My basic approach to jazz impro is collected from Ivor moraints, My lead lines for his tracks; Knicked from Denny wright (his music partner, and accompanist to grappeli) from listening to his records. The chance to play with musicians like Dis Dizley, Johnny silvo. That to me is passing it on as you then put into practise everything that you have learnt in a live context. And a sheer all round ability to entertain in any genre. That is something that takes one person years to learn which I have picked up in three years. I am truelly endebted to the great man. pete. |
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